


Match

by Chellodello



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Universe, Eren has a grim future, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Marco is a mama's boy, Training days fic, Ymir gives campy nicknames out like candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chellodello/pseuds/Chellodello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mail call is a sacred and holy time for the 104th trainee squad.<br/>Or;<br/>Jean and Marco wear matching sweaters and no one lets them live it down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Match

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Morgan, who wanted something happy because I ruined her life with my Jean!meta.

 

 

_ Run, running all the time; running to the future with you right by my side. Me, I'm the one you chose; out of all the people you wanted me the most... _

* * *

On one not so very special day in December, both Jean and Marco receive packages during mail call.

Marco getting a package isn’t all that surprising; his family tried to send him letters and things from home once a month if possible. It was usually a time of joy for the whole cabin, piling around Marco to see what with mother sent him; warm teases and elbows to the ribs were the norm. It was comforting in a way, so many of them had no parents to send them things, so watching Marco open his was the next best thing.

When his mother, Mara Bodt, caught wind of this sad reality things for the other cadets started to show up with his letters and underwear shipments; extra tea bags in fruit flavors, knit pairs of socks, hair ties for the girls (and Armin), birthday notes, were just a few of the treats that were secretly sent to the cabin. 

Sasha swore up and down that Marco’s mother was a saint from on high after she sent them two tins of cookies one year and Eren will deny until his dying breath that he sent her recipes for other kinds of sweets in exchange for that cookie recipe.

So it wasn’t all that odd that Marco got mail.

Jean, on the other hand, never got anything in the mail. Why would he? His mother and he weren’t on the best of terms even if she could afford to send him things, which she couldn’t.  And who else would send him letters? The only people who remotely liked him were already here.

Understandably the package causes ruckus in tee cabin.

"It’s from your mom." The ashen haired boy says dumbly, looking at the return postage.  Written in neat letters was Marco’s family address in Southern Wall Rose. He is immediately suspicious.

"Looks like you’re an honorary Bodt now.” Marco teases and the others snicker around them. "And you thought she didn’t like you."

"She hates me." He tries not to let it bother him that his best friend/almost boyfriend's mother disliked him, and he thinks he’s doing a great job.

The freckled boy rolls his eyes and dismisses the claim. “She does not hate you Jean.”

"No, no she hates him." Connie supplies. “Remember that time she sent us dried apricots, even though she knows that Jean is allergic to them?”

“Or the time she specifically asked that you give him the pink pair of socks?” Mina says with wistfulness. That had been a good day. A funny day.

“Or the fact that she called him ‘John’ in her letters for the entire first year of training?” Thomas adds.

Ow, okay he didn't need reminding, thank you very much.  Still he makes an ' _I told you so gesture'_ to his best friend. “See? She hates me.”

“Of course she does, no mother likes the hoodlum-bad boy that takes away their little precious princess of a child. Jean you heartbreaker you~.”

“No one asked you Ymir.” Jean spits with a glare.

She predictably flips him off. “Bite me Queerstein.” Eren snorts in amusement, which only makes Jean want to chuck the package at both of their heads.

“Guys, can we not do this for once? Please?” Marco sighs in exasperation. Just once he was like to be able to open his mail without it turning into a fight.

It takes a moment, but Jean decides to not waste his one and only package on assholes like Jaeger and Ymir. “Fine. But your mom still hates me, admit it.”

"She does not! Mom just- well she-." Marco can’t find the words to explain just why his mother was so hostile to his best friend without blurting out that Ymir was kinda _right_. Marco did have a tendency to, well, wax poetic about Jean in all of his letters home and his mother was sick of it. But saying so outloud would only add fuel to the fire and fluster Jean even further, so he trails off lamely. "Lets just open them, yeah?"

There is a hallowed silence among the 104th as the packages are opened, but when the contents are unveiled the reverence of the moment is broken by laughter. In each box there is a puse-purple hand knit sweater identical in every way. Marco’s mother always sent her son a sweater when the temperatures started to drop but Jean getting one was something else entirely.

Marco pulls it over his head effortlessly. All eyes turn to the ashen haired teen expectantly.

Jean shrugs and tries to make it seem like putting the sweater on is not a big deal, when it is in fact a BIG deal. A  **huge**  deal. His best friend’s mother, the woman who seemingly despised him, had sent him a sweater. That she made. For him. Jean. Who she hated. A lot.

He isn’t sure how to feel about this. On one hand it was a god awful sweater: the most unappealing shade of purple possible. It’s a shame that it’s so gross because purple dye is expensive and it must have cost the Bodt matriarch quite a bit to get enough wool to make.

But on the other hand he can’t help but feel like this was some kind of peace treaty, an abstract, ‘Well, my son seems to like you and I guess I’m stuck dealing with you so have this shitty family sweater’ woven into yarn if you will.

Jean over thinks it, he always over thinks everything, and it causes him to get his head stuck in the fabric much the amusement of his so-called friends. "Are you kidding me right now?!"

“Dumbass.”

“I told you he had a big head.”

“Yeah because it’s full of shit.”

“Shut the fuck up Jaeger before I strangle you with this thing.”

“If you can escape it.”

Marco takes pity on him and pulls it over his head with gentle hands, rubbing the back of his neck apologetically. The fine hairs found there do  **not** stand up and tingle from the contact. Nope. The freckled teen grins sheepishly. "They’re certainly, uh, creative. Mom outdid herself this year."

"They look like ass." Jean answers with a relatively flat stare given the circumstances. Still despite the general grossness of the sweater, it is soft and it would certainly help keep him warm in the following months. He appreciates it grudgingly.

Marco returns his stare with a calm, beseeching, expression. "We match." he says simply and Jean’s heart beats rapidly, like he just ran laps. The ashen haired boy hates when he says crap like ‘ _we match'_ because he wants to takes it as more than the ugly sweaters his mom knit. He wants to take it as them matching each other in other things. In everything. Because they do. Perfectly.

Jean stares into his best friend’s honey eyes and has one of those terribly gross urges to to word vomit just how much he adores the freckled boy, even if it mean his friends would never let him live it down.

Ugh, feelings.

"Do you guys want us to leave or something? Because I don’t want to watch you makes googoo eyes at each other anymore than I already have to."

Even Marco laughs at the well times jab and Jean tears his gaze away to glare angrily at the green eyed boy. “Would it kill you to not talk for whole minute Jaeger?”

“Probably.” Mikasa answers for Eren much to his annoyance.

"You know they say that gifts from the in-laws are the sign of a happy marriage." Reiner contemplates out loud with a smirk and Bertholdt sighs ‘be nice’. It goes unheeded of course.

"So should we call them Mister and Mister Bodt or Mister and Mister Kirschtein now?" Connie asks with a wicked grin. Sasha jumps on the comment immediately.

"Oh! Pick Bodt! That sounds so much better, a lot less phlegm."

"Come on guys, you’re making him blush." Marco pleads weakly and Jean knows he’s teasing him too. Stupid bastard and his deceptively sweet smile, it makes him forget that under those freckles Marco is just as big a jerk as the rest of them.

“Just like a bride! How lovely of you Jean.” Christa sing-songs.

“Good one babe.”

“I do try.”

"I am NOT blushing!"  Of course no one believes him and his face only gets hotter, spreading to his ears and neck.

Even Annie joins in on the fun with a muttered “Congratulations.”

Jean wishes a titan would attack right this very second and eat him whole just so he would never have to deal with this again. He has no such luck. The urge to tear the sweater off and shove it down someone’s throat is strong, but that would be letting them win and his pride won’t allow it. So instead he sinks deeper into the wool to sulk.

Sensing that anymore teasing would legitimately upset Jean, Marco uses his trump card. “Okay okay, you all had your fun. Mom sent cookies again if you want—“ The sentence goes unfinished as the cadets of the 104th are all storming the box like vultures to a carcass. It has its desired effect through and it affords Marco a moment to smooth down his best friend’s ruffled feathers.

He scoots closer to him, so much that their hips touch. “Don’t be mad, they’re just joking.”

Jean huffs.

“And okay, yes, they aren’t the nicest sweaters to be made—“

“—understatement.”

“But! But! At least they’re warm?” Marco knocks his shoulder with his own.

Okay, okay, credit where credit is due: the ugly sweater is warm if nothing else. “Yeah, they are. Tell your mom thanks for me.”  The ash haired teen knocks his shoulder back and the tension eases from him completely. Once again Marco has managed to defuse his emotional constipation with a few words: He really shouldn’t be surprised anymore.

Marco spares a glance behind them, making sure that there are no prying eyes and takes Jean’s hand in his own. Their sleeves are too long and cover their laced fingers with ease. “It’s weird that she made you one at all though. I don’t think she’s made one for someone outside the family before.” He ponders out loud.

Jean snorts. “I bet she finally realized that I’m not leaving you anytime soon.”

Fuck.

He could kick himself in the head, stupid word vomit. He hadn’t meant to say that. Whatever it was between him and Marco was very new and very uncharted for both of them; a press of hands now and then, a kiss here or there, and certainly nothing ‘official’ to write home to. Was it okay to say mushy bullshit like that?

He steals a glance at the brown eyed boy to see if he’s mortified by his unintentional emotional dribble. He isn't. Marco squeezes his hand and proceeds to smile at him like he’s the fucking sun in the sky and — _wow_ — that is an amazing feeling. “Good. I’m not leaving you anytime soon either.”

Jean wants to both kiss him and vomit from the earnestness in his voice, love is confusing like that he is learning. He has enough common sense to do neither, so he settles for squeezing his hand back: hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make his meaning clear. “We’re agreed then?”

“Completely.”

"Seriously though, if you two want to suck face or dick we can leave. That is a thing we can do." Ymir yells through a mouth full of cookies.

Christa smacks her arm. “Don’t be rude Ymir.”

"What? I might not be the smartest girl but even I can read the mood. Pony Express and Titan Bait are eye fucking hard enough to make even me blush.”

“Whose eye fucking?” Connie asks while tossing cookie bites into Sasha’s mouth.

“Who do you think?” Eren answers blandly, clearly not interested in the romantic goings on of his horse-faced almost friend any loner. “Romance is gross.” he concludes with a shrug.

“You say that now…but one day you’ll be acting like a blushing housewife over someone too Eren.” Armin advises wisely.

Mikasa drops her cookie in alarm. “Absolutely not.”

Eren scoffs indignantly. “Fat chance of that happening.”

“I don’t know...I’ve got a funny feeling…” The blond boy smiles cryptically, sensing a new target has appeared, the others to join in on the teasing.

“You do swap recipes like a housewife already Eren.”

'“Actually, I can picture you in an apron pretty easily bug eyes.”

"I call dibs on maid of honor!"

“That not funny you guys! That will NEVER happen.”

Just when Jean thinks that they’ve transferred the teasing onto Jaeger for good and are going to escape this whole sweater fiasco relatively unscathed, Reiner clasps a large hand down of both his and Marco’s shoulders. “Be safe now boys, don’t do something I wouldn’t do yeah?” The blond teen wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Bertholdt giggles. Both boys in question lock eyes before blanching in horror are the implication.

“Holy shit Reiner, WHY? WHY TELL US THAT?”

“Too much information guys…waaaaaaay too much.”

Jean decides that he’ll be perfectly fine if he never gets another package from Marco’s mother ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> In case your were wondering, oh yeah, those were some ugly ass weasely looking sweaters.  
> I've always had this headcanon of Marco being a mama's boy and his mother not being particularly fond of the obnoxious boy who monopolizes her son's time and affections. Still, she wants him to be happy so she grudgingly accepts Jean.  
> Lyrics at the top are from No Doubt's 'Running' which I had on repeat writing this.


End file.
